This article describes my view of what comprises “the good
life,” along with some comments on how to achieve it.I begin with a discussion of the views of
Bertrand Russell on the topic, and compare my own views to his.I close with some observations on how to
achieve the good life.In Russell’s
view, “The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.”In my view, “The good life is inspired by
desire, guided by love, and facilitated (enabled) by knowledge.”

Bertrand Russell’s
views on the good life

In 1925, British philosopher Bertrand Russell published a
small book entitled, What I Believe.A reprint of this book is included in the later
publication, Why I Am Not a Christian and other essays on
religion and related subjects (1957, currently published by Touchstone /
Simon and Schuster).In a section of the
book entitled, “The Good Life,” Russell presents the following definition of
the good life: “The good life is one inspired by love and guided by
knowledge.”I will present a few
quotations from Russell’s essay, and then expand on it, presenting my own point
of view on the matter.The quotes that
follow are but a taste of Russell’s thoughtful essay – I recommend that you
acquire and read the full essay.

From the section entitled, “The Good Life”:

“Knowledge and love are both indefinitely extensible;
therefore, however good a life may be, a better life can be imagined.”

“Although both love and knowledge are necessary, love is in
a sense more fundamental, since it will lead intelligent people to seek
knowledge, in order to find out how to benefit those whom they love.But if people are not intelligent, they will
be content to believe what they have been told and may do harm in spite of the
most genuine benevolence.”

“Love is a word which covers a variety of feelings; I have
used it purposely, as I wish to include them all.Love as an emotion – which is what I am
speaking about, for love “on principle” does not seem to me genuine – moves
between two poles: on one side, pure delight in contemplation; on the other,
pure benevolence.Where inanimate
objects are concerned, delight alone enters in; we cannot feel benevolence
toward a landscape or a sonata.… The
opposite pole of love is pure benevolence.Men have sacrificed their lives to helping lepers; in such a case the
love they felt cannot have had any element of aesthetic delight.

“Love at its fullest is an indissoluble combination of the
two elements, delight and well-wishing.The pleasure of a parent in a beautiful and successful child combines
both elements; so does sex love at its best.But in sex love, benevolence will only exist where there is secure
possession, since otherwise jealousy will destroy it, while perhaps actually
increasing the delight in contemplation.Delight without well-wishing may be cruel; well-wishing without delight
easily tends to become cold and a little superior.”

“In a perfect world, every sentient being would be to every
other the object of the fullest love, compounded of delight, benevolence, and
understanding inextricably blended.It
does not follow that, in this actual world, we ought to attempt to have such
feelings toward all the sentient beings whom we
encounter.There are many in whom we
cannot feel delight, because they are disgusting; if we were to do violence to
our nature by trying to see beauties in them, we should merely blunt our
susceptibilities to what we naturally find beautiful.Not to mention human beings, there are fleas
and bugs and lice.”

“Benevolence is easier to extend widely, but even
benevolence has its limits.If a man
wished to marry a lady, we should not think the better of him for withdrawing
if he found that someone else also wished to marry her: we should regard this
as a fair field for competition.Yet his
feelings toward a rival cannot be wholly
benevolent.I think that in all
descriptions of the good life here on earth we must assume a certain basis of
animal vitality and animal instinct; without this, life becomes tame and
uninteresting.Civilization should be
something added to this, not substituted for it; the ascetic saint and the
detached sage fail in this respect to be complete human beings.A small number of them may enrich a
community; but a world composed of them would die of boredom.”

“These considerations lead to a certain emphasis on the
element of delight as an ingredient in the best love.Delight, in this actual world, is unavoidably
selective and prevents us from having the same feelings for all mankind.When conflicts arise between delight and
benevolence, they must, as a rule, be decided by a compromise, not by a
complete surrender of either.Instinct
has its rights, and if we do violence to it beyond a point it takes vengeance
in subtle ways.Therefore in aiming at a
good life the limits of human possibility must be borne in mind.Here again, however, we are brought back to
the necessity of knowledge.”

“When I speak of knowledge as an ingredient of the good
life, I am not thinking of ethical knowledge but of scientific knowledge and
knowledge of particular facts.I do not
think there is, strictly speaking, such a thing as ethical knowledge.If we desire to achieve some end, knowledge
may show us the means, and this knowledge may loosely pass as ethical.But I do not believe that we can decide what
sort of conduct is right or wrong except by reference to its probable
consequences.[My note: This is the
basis for Neale Donald Walsch’s
relative morality.]Given an end to be
achieved, it is a question for science to discover how to achieve it.All moral rules must be tested by examining
whether they tend to realize ends that we desire.I say ends that we desire, not ends that we ought to desire.What we “ought” to desire is merely what
someone else wishes us to desire.Usually it is what the authorities wish us to desire – parents,
schoolmasters, policemen, and judges.”

“The superfluity of theoretical ethics is obvious in simple
cases.Suppose, for instance, your child
is ill.Love makes you wish to cure it,
and science tells you how to do so.There is not an intermediate stage of ethical theory, where it is
demonstrated that your child had better be cured.Your act springs directly from desire for an
end, together with knowledge of means.This is equally true of all acts, whether good or bad.The ends differ, and the knowledge is more
adequate in some cases than in others.But there is no conceivable way of making people do
things they do not wish to do.What is
possible is to alter their desires by a system of rewards and penalties, among
which social approval and disapproval are not the least potent.The question for the legislative moralist is,
therefore: How shall this system of rewards and punishments be arranged so as
to secure the maximum of what is desired by the legislative authority?If I say that the legislative authority has
bad desires, I mean merely that its desires conflict with those of some section
of the community to which I belong.Outside human desires there is no moral standard.”

In the section entitled, “Moral Rules,” Russell continues:

“The practical need of morals arises from the conflict of
desires, whether of different people or of the same person at different times
or even at one time.A man desires to
drink, and also be fit for his work next morning.”

“That is why love is better than hate, because it brings
harmony instead of conflict into the desires of the persons connected.Two people between whom there is love succeed or fail together, but when two people hate each
other the success of either is the failure of the other.”

“If we were right in saying that the good life is inspired
by love and guided by knowledge, it is clear that the moral code of any
community is not ultimate and self-sufficient but must be examined with a view
to seeing whether it is such as wisdom and benevolence would have decreed.Moral codes have not always been faultless.The Aztecs considered it their painful duty
to eat human flesh for fear the light of the sun should grow dim.They erred in their science; and perhaps they
would have perceived the scientific error if they had had any love for the
sacrificial victims.”

“Current morality is a curious blend of utilitarianism and
superstition, but the superstitious part has the stronger hold, as is natural,
since superstition is the origin of moral rules.”

“Even more harmful than theological superstition is the
superstition of nationalism, of duty to one’s own state and to no other.But I do not propose on this occasion to
discuss the matter beyond pointing out that limitation to one’s compatriots is
contrary to the principle of love which we recognized as constituting the good
life.It is also, of course, contrary to
enlightened self-interest, since an exclusive nationalism does not pay even the
victorious nations.”

In the section, “Salvation: Individual and Social,” Russell
writes:

“When Plato wanted to describe the good life, he described a
whole community, not an individual; he did so in order to define justice, which
is an essentially social conception.He
was accustomed to citizenship of a Republic, and political responsibility was
something which he took for granted.”

“The good life, as we conceive it, demands a multitude of
social conditions and cannot be realized without them.The good life, we said, is a life inspired by
love and guided by knowledge.The
knowledge required can only exist where governments or millionaires devote
themselves to its discovery and diffusion.”

“To live a good life in the fullest sense a man must have a
good education, friends, love, children (if he desires them), a sufficient
income to keep him from want and grave anxiety, good health, and work which is
not uninteresting.All these things, in
varying degrees, depend upon the community and are helped or hindered by
political events.The good life must be
lived in a good society and is not fully possible otherwise.”

“I do not wish to suggest that revolutions are never necessary,
but I do wish to suggest that they are not short cuts to the millennium.There is no short cut to the good life,
whether individual or social.To build
up the good life, we must build up intelligence, self-control, and sympathy.”

In the section, “Science and Happiness,” Russell writes:

“The purpose of the moralist is to improve men’s
behavior.This is a laudable ambition,
since their behavior is for the most part deplorable.”

“It must, therefore, be one of the chief concerns of the
scientific moralist to combat fear.This
can be done in two ways: by increasing security and by cultivating courage.”

“But courage in fighting is by no means the only form, nor
perhaps even the most important.There
is courage in facing poverty, courage in facing decision, courage in facing the
hostility of one’s own herd.In these,
the bravest soldiers are often lamentably deficient.And above all there is the courage to think
calmly and rationally in the face of danger, and to control the impulse of
panic fear or panic rage.These are
certainly things which education can help to give.And the teaching of every form of courage is
rendered easier by good health, good physique, adequate nourishment, and free
play for fundamental vital impulses.”

“But fear is not the only source of malevolence; envy and
disappointment also have their share.The envy of cripples and hunchbacks is proverbial as a source of their
malignity, but other misfortunes than theirs produce similar results.A man or woman who has been thwarted sexually
is apt to be full of envy; this generally takes the form of moral condemnation
of the more fortunate.Much of the
driving force of revolutionary movements is due to envy of the rich.Jealousy is, of course, a special form of
envy; envy of love.The old often envy
the young; when they do, they are apt to treat them cruelly.”

“A certain amount of work is not a thing to complain of;
indeed, in nine cases out of ten, it makes a man happier than complete
idleness.But the amount and kind of work
that most people have to do at present is a grave evil: especially bad is the
lifelong bondage to routine.Life should
not be too closely regulated or too methodical; our impulses, when not
positively destructive or injurious to others, ought if possible to have free
play; there should be room for adventure.Human nature we should respect, because our impulses and desires are the
stuff out of which our happiness is to be made.It is no use to give men something abstractedly considered ‘good’; we
must give them something desired or needed if we are to add to their
happiness.”

“Nature, even human nature, will cease more and more to be
an absolute datum; more and more it will become what scientific manipulation
has made it.Science can, if it chooses,
enable our grandchildren to live the good life, by giving them knowledge,
self-control, and characters productive of harmony rather than strife.At present it is teaching them to kill each
other, because many men of science are willing to sacrifice the future of
mankind to their own momentary prosperity.But this phase will soon pass when men have acquired the same domination
over their own passions that they already have over the physical forces of the
external world.Then at last we shall
have won our freedom.”

So much for Bertrand Russell’s views on
the good life.

My views on the good
life

In my view, the good life is inspired by desire, guided by
love, and facilitated (enabled) by knowledge.In the paragraphs that follow, I shall explain the reasons for my
different definition.

First, in order to achieve a good life, we must focus on a
goal, and realize the achievement of goals that we set for ourselves.Human beings are greater – more complex –
than the animals.They are not simply
driven by the need for food and shelter, or the emotions of sex and fear.Intelligent beings need far more to make life
fulfilling and meaningful.Human beings
have strong desires for excitement, adventure, discovery, creativity, building,
entertainment and playing games.And
their goals are not simply defined by instinct – human beings have the freedom
to set their own goals.

What makes human activity – the game of life – particularly
interesting is that man has “knowledge of good and evil.”It is the presence of evil in the world that
makes human existence and activity so very interesting and meaningful.Without evil, life would have no
“plots.”I recall once reading a book on
how to write a novel, and one of the maxims was something to the effect that
the story’s not begun until the plot is developed.That is true not only in novels, but in life
as well.

Russell’s paradigm for the good life is basically sound, but
it does not go far enough.It could
apply just as well to animals – a mother lion, out of love (maternal instinct)
teaches its cubs how to hunt (i.e., provides them with knowledge of skills and
environment, which they in turn use to survive).And the lions, as a family (pride) and as a
species, realize a good life.Russell
states that the good life is inspired by love.And, to a considerable extent, it is.Our love for our mate and our children is a major aspect of human
existence.But, as human beings, with
high intelligence and a wide range of emotions, love for family members is but
one of many other significant aspects of existence.Columbus
had a burning desire to find a new route to India,
across the Atlantic Ocean.This desire had nothing to do with love as
Russell defined it (delight and benevolence).And Thomas Edison had a burning desire to invent an electric light
bulb.This had nothing at all to do with
his love of his family members.Tiger
Woods has a burning desire to be the best golfer in the world, and this had
virtually nothing to do with love for a mate or children or parents or anyone
else.Bill Gates had a burning desire to
build an operating system that would be used by all of the world’s
microcomputers.This had nothing to do
with love (i.e., it did not affect his love for others, or was affected by
their love for him).Werner von Braun
had a burning desire to build a rocket that would reach the moon, and Albert
Einstein had a burning desire to understand why the speed of light was a
universal constant.Many writers write
and musicians play, with little relationship to love (consideration of love for
others).And many people play games
(e.g., cards, chess, football) that have little or no
relationship to love for others.The
point is, much of what people do has little to do with love, and much to do
with other emotions, such as the gratification of discovery or conquest.Love for others was a negligible
consideration in determining whether the preceding inventors, scientists,
engineers and others should have worked on what they did, or on something else
(or the way that they did, or in some other way).

That is, unless it is argued that engaging in risky behavior
might rob a man’s family of his companionship or support, or that any technical
development is bad, since it contributes to the development of an industrial
society that is harmful to nature and, ultimately, to man.What does love have to say about these
considerations?

Note that the in the above examples, I have deliberately
omitted life activities that may well be guided by love.Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar had
burning desires to conquer the world.Should they have done so?Their
conquests resulted in the slaughter and submission of countless multitudes of
people.Was this right to do so?Were the advantages of advancing civilization
and making life on Earth much more complex and interesting worth the sacrifice
of the unfortunate souls whose lives got disrupted and destroyed?Their conquests were not necessary.Or were they?Had they not acted first (a “preemptive” strike), would the Persians or
the Egyptians or the Gauls have eventually struck
first, as human population inexorably expanded?I believe so.But whether love
has anything to say in the matter of whether
to conquer the world, it may have much to say on how it is done.Execution of
a sentry who falls asleep on the job may seem extreme punishment from our
present-day perspective, but it is a very necessary procedure when the lives of
all of your troops are dependent on vigilance, and there are no prisons.

I could present many other examples in which love plays a
significant role.Dale Earnhardt wanted to be the world’s fastest stock-car
driver, to the point where it cost him his life.Was this fair to his wife and family?Should his love for them, and their love for him,
dissuaded him from undertaking this role?Would they have been happier living with a live dad who lived a life of
frustration and regret, forever aware of his burning desire to be the world’s
greatest racing driver, knowing inside that he had a good chance to do so,
forever wondering whether he could make it, eaten by jealousy as he watched
lesser men grasp the prize, and knowing that he himself had diminished his life
by turning away from his intended destiny of a life of interest, challenge,
excitement, achievement, pride – and the ultimate tragedy?The answer is obvious.

Love does not imply minimization of risk – it implies
balancing risk with goals.Love works
for rich, full lives.In the end, we
shall all die.The only issues of
importance relative to death are when and under what circumstances.In this regard, it may be helpful to recall
Jesus’ assertions, “I am come that you may have life, and have it more
abundantly,” and “Whosoever who would save his life will lose it.”Jesus’ philosophy of life centered on love
(love one another, love your neighbor as yourself, love God), but love was intended
to enrich the quality of life, not diminish it or constrain it.Love expands life, it does not diminish
it.But it may shorten it.In the world of investments, higher return is
always associated with higher risk.Life
is the same.If you go for the larger
prize, you may end up in a wheelchair, or dead sooner rather than later.In life, there is often a tradeoff between
quantity and quality.If you shrink from
the fear of rejection or loss of a lover or mate, or from the pain of a lost
child, you must resign yourself to never having a lover, a mate or
children.If you undertake to start a
business, you know that you may succeed and become rich and powerful, or at
least realize a desired level of control over your life; or you may fail and
face a lifetime of debt.But you know
that some who try will succeed, and none who do not will.The choice is yours, to take the chance or
not.Love will not let you waste your life, throw your life away with no purpose.But it will never agree to a meaningless,
purposeless life.The ultimate sin is boredom.

Finally, what about the issue that technological advancement
of any kind is, ultimately, detrimental to nature?Should we not, therefore, desist from
advancing knowledge and developing the world in any way?In my view, this is not an issue that the
individual can address very well.Such
issues, dealing with the macroscopic state of the world, rest in the domain of
enlightened individuals who are world leaders.The individual, in my view, should not or cannot worry too much about
the effect of his actions on the entire world, except when faced with the
decision of whether to resist or follow the proposals of the leaders.Mankind cannot engage in the tremendously
exciting game of conquering and developing a planet, without harming nature to
some extent. But it was God’s decision
to endow man with an incredible urge to create and build, and it therefore
follows that some disruption of nonsentient nature will follow.All life forms occupy space and resources
that could be used by other life forms – that is not the issue.The issue is whether all life forms live
together in a reasonably stable harmony, without one species trying to destroy
all of the others.

(Aside, on the issue of the role, scope, and scale of
technology in mankind’s future… In the current phase of Earth’s / mankind’s
life cycle, the game is economic development.In this phase, free-market capitalism, democracy, massive amounts of
commercial energy, and individual freedom reign. This
combination has never been seen before, and will never be seen again on this
planet.The significant game to play at
the present time is accumulation, by individuals, of vast riches and
power.The incredible situation at the
present time is that virtually anyone can play and win.This phase, however, can last only for a very
short time (until fossil fuels are gone, or until the planet’s biosphere is
destroyed).The winners in this game are
businessmen, capitalists, technologists and industrialists: the Andrew
Carnegies, the J. P. Morgans, the John D.
Rockefellers, the Henry Fords, the J. P. Gettys, the
Howard Hugheses, the Bill Gateses,
the Larry Ellisons, the Warren Buffets, the Donald
Trumps, the Sam Waltons, the Richard Bransons and the Jim Goodnights of the world.Mankind will never be able to play this game
again.It is the unique opportunity of
our time.In the planet’s current phase,
which is rapidly drawing to an end, the game of the time is economic
development, and it is the men who end their lives with the most marbles who
win.The play of this game, however, is
destroying the biosphere, and when these men are finished playing, there may be
nothing but a ruined planet for all of the millions of future generations of
mankind, if mankind survives at all.And
this leads to an even more fascinating game – the game to save the planet, and
mankind, from those who would destroy it by overpopulation and global industrialization.That is the game that I see myself playing.

(The games of these individuals are quickly losing
relevance.Just as the games that
Alexander and Caesar and Charlemagne played are no longer relevant, and are now
a forever-gone part of the past, their games will soon no longer be
played.The games of industrial and
business successes are becoming irrelevant because the system (abundant fossil
fuels, democracy, capitalism, individual freedom, materialism, hedonism, global
industrialization, overpopulation, etc.) in which they could operate is
passing.It is fascinating to observe
that, while their games were the game
of Earth’s recent phase, continued play of those games will surely destroy the
biosphere and exterminate mankind.Too much of a good thing.Those who were the leaders and creators and builders of the recent era
are now the destroyers.Thesis and antithesis.What was once the good and the goal has been transformed into the evil
and the anti-goal.Capitalism has indeed
sown the seeds of its own destruction.The
new system, the New Age, the phoenix, will arise out of the ashes of the system
that is about to pass away.But, if we
succeed at all, and avoid our extinction, it will not at all be a return to
nature as the planet once knew it.Change
continues.Complexity advances.You can’t go home again.There will never be a return to a natural
world (assuming mankind survives), now that man has eaten of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, and Pandora’s box has been opened.The revolutionary change that is about to
occur is the transformation of the global-industrial world into a hybrid world,
in which technology and nature will exist in harmony.Thesis:
the natural world of yesteryear, which is gone forever as long as mankind
survives.Antithesis: the globally industrialized world of today, which is
rapidly self-destructing.Synthesis: The New World Order will
combine elements of the old (natural world) and the new (technology).It is in this new system – the synthesis
stage – that mankind will now move on to greater heights.

(Global industrialization has served its purpose, in
enabling the rapid advance (explosion) of knowledge, while at the same time
revealing, unequivocally demonstrating, the
impossibility of its continuation as a viable long-term planetary system.Mankind has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt
that it is incapable of controlling nature.The best that it can do – the only
way that will work – is to restrict the scale of its operations so that most of
the planet can operate as a natural system the way it did for millions of
years.What is destroying the biosphere
is mankind’s large numbers and industrial activity.But mankind is totally incapable of
controlling its numbers – it continually seeks new ways to convert the entire
planet to agriculture for human food, even to the limit of destroying the very
biosphere in which it lives.It seeks to
use technology (high-yield varieties, genetic modification, fossil-fuel-based
agriculture) to grow more food, to expand human population as rapidly as human
females can reproduce, even at the cost of exterminating tens of thousands of
other species every year.Its response
to famine is always to grow more food, rather than to allow less people.As the fossil-fuel age draws to a close, however,
mankind’s numbers will shrink, and it will move to the new phase, with a very
small technological population and most of the Earth in a natural state with
the primitive (hunter-gatherer, nonagricultural) population that existed on the
planet for millions of years.)

With respect to the importance of knowledge, I am in
agreement with Russell in viewing that it is an essential ingredient in the
recipe for achieving the goal of realizing a good life.

With respect to the role of love in achieving the good life,
my view is that, while love may in fact serve as inspiration in some cases, it
serves the role of conscience or morality (i.e., a guide) in all cases.We may have desires for many things (such as
crossing the ocean or inventing the phonograph or electric light bulb), and
whether we strive to achieve those goals and how we go about achieving them,
should be guided by the impact that our actions will have on other life forms
(not just people, but animals and all other living species that comprise the
biosphere).My view is hence that we
should, in striving for the good life, be guided
by love.We may in fact also be inspired by love, if our desire is to
acquire a mate or help our family or others.In this case, we are both inspired by love and guided by love.But in many cases, our activities have little
to do, directly, with love.In these
cases, we should take into account the results of our activity on the
well-being of others (i.e., take love into account, as a guide).The inspiration may or may not involve love,
but love will serve to guide our decisions and actions.

Russell had much to say on the topics of love and knowledge,
and there is little that I can add to his discussion of those topics.Since I have added a third ingredient to the
good life – viz., desire, I shall discuss it at some length.Also, Russell had little to say on the issue
of how to achieve the good life, and
I will discuss that, also.

Before proceeding with further discussion, I will dwell a
little longer on the conceptual framework, or paradigm, with which I am
dealing.As I mentioned, I believe that
the purpose of life is to achieve whatever goals we wish to set for ourselves,
i.e., to express our human nature in as interesting and exciting and full a
fashion as we can.But this view
immediately raises the question of what those goals should be.In my view, they may be anything at all.Our goals will flow from our desires.All of us have some basic desires, such as
for food, shelter, and sex.Beyond these
basic desires, different people will have different desires, and hence
different goals.On both the individual
level and the societal level, we should, if we are striving for “the good
life,” consider the impact of realizing our desires on other people and the
planetary environment, i.e., be guided by love.Of course, given human nature, some people will not be guided by love at
all.In fact, whole societies may not be
guided by love – witness the current destruction of the planetary environment –
and the likely extinction of all future generations of mankind – by the whole
of Western (industrialized) civilization, guided by materialistic greed, not by
love.

But if you are striving for the good life, what should your
goals be?That is, what should your
desires be?To some extent, you have
little control over your basic desires (food, shelter, sex, social acceptance /
recognition).The issue here concerns
desires beyond the basic ones.While
those additional desires may seem to arise spontaneously, given the society and
environment into which we are born, in fact we have considerable flexibility in
generating them.Look around you, at all
that life has to offer, and imagine the infinite variety of roles that you
might play.As Shakespeare observed, the
world is a stage, and we are all players on that stage.To a very large degree, you can write your
own script.Of course, if you are living
in ancient Rome, you may as well
not aspire to be Buck Rogers in the Twenty-First Century, and if you aspire to
be Caesar, the odds against your accomplishing that goal are quite low (given
the competition for the job).But, if
you are of sound mind and body, you have a very good chance of accomplishing
almost any reasonable goal you set for yourself, in the social and
environmental context in which you find yourself.What do you want out of life?That is pretty much up to you.

If you are striving for the good life (as we have defined
it), your goals, and your desires, and what you do to achieve them, will be
guided by love.That is, what goals we
decide to strive for, and how we work toward them, should be guided by
love.To accomplish this, it is necessary
to assess the importance of our proposed actions on other people and the environment
– not just in our immediate time and place, but for the entire planet and for
all time.The effect of this guidance
will differ for each of us.We are not
all able to change the world, either because we have no desire to do so, or
because of other limitations.Our goals
and the actions that we consider to achieve them will be different.In order to be guided by love, we must be
able to imagine the likely consequences of our actions.Some of us are much better at seeing the
implications of our actions than others.Most of us are reasonably able to imagine the impact of our actions on
our immediate family or social context in the present or near-term future.The big problem is that what we do may seem
reasonable in a local context in the near future, but not work well in a global
context or in the distant future.It may
seem perfectly reasonable to want to have a car to commute to work in, but if
all six billion people on the planet were to do this, the planet would surely
be destroyed.So what do you do?

The best approach here is to realize that what you do, as a
single individual, will probably not change the world, and to act responsibly
(be guided by love) given the social and environmental context in which you
live.You may try to act responsibly as
an individual, and observe the maxim, “Think globally and act locally.”But realistically, most individuals will have
little impact on global developments.Their collective action may appear to make a difference, such as in voting
in a national election or serving as a soldier in the army or participating in
a world religion.But if none of the
people for whom you are voting has a good program
(such as is the case in the current (2004) US
presidential election, with respect to the establishment of a rational
planetary management system), all the democracy and all the voting and all of
the individual action in the world will not amount to anything.It is the will of the national or planetary
leaders that will make the difference.It is the inspiration and leadership of enlightened individuals that
will make a difference.And these
individuals will appear when the time is right.For the average individual, there are many other local activities (job,
family, hobbies) that provide real meaning to his life, and fill it on a daily
basis.For most people, a better maxim
than “Think globally and act locally,” is probably, “Think locally and act
locally.”It will be very clear when a
world leader appears who can make a difference, and when that happens, the
local actions of individuals who support him will contribute to success.

If society as a whole is not headed in the right direction,
then a social or natural catastrophe, such as a war or revolution, or global
warming, will occur, and you will have little effect on preventing this or
affecting the ultimate outcome.If you think
that you can change the world, then by all means go for it, but realize that
you will probably not realize your goal.As a human being, you must decide for yourself if you would rather
succeed at raising a family and becoming a schoolteacher and mayor of your
town, or fail at preventing global warming.So choose goals for yourself that will be exciting to accomplish and
have a reasonably good chance of success.As an individual, do not worry too much about the big picture.That is the responsibility of the planetary
leaders.Remind yourself that, as
asserted in Ecclesiastes, nothing is very important – nothing really matters
very much.Remind yourself of Jesus’
assertion that he came so that we may have life, and have it more
abundantly.As an individual, you cannot
control the planet’s future.But you can
ensure that your life is meaningful and interesting and exciting, in a personal
and local context.

Assuming that you have chosen a goal, how do you go about
realizing it?There have been thousands
of self-help and motivational books written on this subject.One of the best is Think and Grow Rich, written in 1937 by Napoleon Hill (and still in
print).Hill identifies the following
major components to achieving an objective: (1) desire; (2) faith /
visualization; (3) autosuggestion; (4) specialized knowledge; (5) imagination /
creativity; (6) organized planning; (7) decision / action; (8) persistence; (9)
power of the “Master Mind” (coordination of knowledge among two or more
people); (10) the mystery of sex transmutation; (11) the subconscious mind;
(12) the brain; (13) the sixth sense; (14) banishment of the six basic fears of
poverty, criticism, ill health, loss of love of someone, old age, and death.

You will notice that the very first item listed by Hill is
desire.Without a desire to achieve a
goal, you will never achieve it.With
respect selecting and nurturing desire, a number of observations may be made.First, make use of meditation and/or prayer
to help identify what goal is best for you.Synthesize as many options as you can, and evaluate each of them with
respect to criteria that are important to you (remember to use love as a
guide).Collect information that will
enable you to make a comprehensive and sound evaluation of all of the
alternatives (consider things like cost, special skill requirements, match of
requirements to your interests and abilities).Conduct a SWOT analysis of the options (analysis of strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats associated with each option).Before you go to sleep, visualize the
alternatives, and suggest to yourself that you will consider the alternatives
as you sleep and reach a good decision about which to adopt by morning.(Remember the old saying that we learn to
skate in the summer and we learn to swim in the winter.)Follow your heart.If you can, discuss the options with others
whose judgment you respect – but not with anyone who is “negative” or
pessimistic or a failure.Think about
the alternatives as much as you can – remember the maxims, “what you think, you
become,” and “what you fear, you attract.”

The second item in Hill’s list is faith, which Hill defines
as visualization of, and belief in attainment of desire.There is a difference between “thinking” you
can accomplish something, and “believing” that you can.Before you set out on a mission, ask yourself
whether you believe that it is right for you and that you can accomplish
it.To succeed, you must believe.As Napoleon Hill asserted, “What the mind of
man can conceive and believe it can achieve.”Belief – faith – is incredibly important.As the famous motivational speaker ZigZiglar repeatedly says, “Do
you believe, do you really believe?”In
the September 20 issue of Time
magazine, there is a column by Joe Klein entitled, “All You Have to Do is Believe.”In
speaking about the 2004 US
presidential campaign, Klein points out that the major difference between the
campaign performance of John Kerry and George Bush, and the reason why Kerry
makes limited progress in attacking Bush’s record, is that George Bush “seems
to believe what he says and Kerry doesn’t quite.”George Bush “truly believes in the power of
‘freedom’ and the evil of Islamic radicalism.”“Bush seems to believe what he says, even if it doesn’t always match
reality.”

Some additional information from Think and Grow Rich is presented in an appendix at the end of this
piece.

A simple framework for success

I mentioned that Russell did not dwell on the mechanics of
achieving the good life.Above, I
suggested consulting Napoleon Hill’s book as a guide to accomplishing your
goals.As a simplified paradigm for
achieving the goal of realizing the good life, I would suggest the
following.The paradigm consists of
three areas (categories of activity), called Desire, Knowledge and Action.These three areas may be called the three
“Pillars of Success.”If you focus on a
goal which you strongly desire and which you strongly believe you can
accomplish, and do diligent work within each of these areas, you will likely
accomplish your goal.

The Desire area includes work on emotional aspects.This includes using meditation and prayer as
tools to help select a preferred goal.It includes visualization, creativity, autosuggestion, and
intuition.It includes taking steps to
banish the fears that jeopardize success.

The Knowledge area includes work in intellectual
aspects.This area includes assembling
information about potential alternative goals, and about the advantages and
disadvantages (criteria values) of each of them.It includes obtaining specialized knowledge
or skills required to accomplish your goal with high likelihood.It includes acquiring knowledge about
motivation and personal development techniques that you may take advantage of,
such as meditation, autosuggestion, and public speaking.It includes use of the “Master Mind” (working
with two or more other people on your goal).It includes developing a detailed plan for accomplishing your
objectives.

The most important part of the Knowledge area is assessing
the likely outcome of alternative courses of action.Whether an action contributes to the good
life depends on whether it is helpful to other people and other life
forms.If it is harmful to people or the
biosphere, it does not contribute to the good life.This assessment is very difficult, since in today’sindustrial
world, about all human activity is destructive to the environment, and hence to
future generations of mankind and other species.At an earlier time, the destruction of human
activity could easily be repaired by the biosphere.Now, human activity is on such a massive
scale that it is impossible for nature to repair the damage, no matter how environmentally
minded we may be as individuals.The biospheric system is in the process of massive and
irreversible change.

The Action area includes work in the decision and
implementation aspects.It includes
making a plan, making a decision to proceed with your plan, and undertaking the
actions required to implement it.Although “Action” refers mainly to the activities subsequent to those of
the Desire and Knowledge areas, it is obvious that action is involved in both
the Desire and Knowledge areas (in performing Desire activities such as
visualization and autosuggestion and Knowledge activities such as assembling
information on personal development methodologies and the specialized knowledge
and skills that achievement of your goal may require (e.g., accounting,
computer skills, language skills, a college degree)).

It is emphasized that an essential ingredient of each of the
three areas is work.Without work on
focusing and nurturing desire, on acquiring necessary knowledge and skills, and
on developing and implementing an Action plan, little of significance will result.

This appendix presents a number of quotations from Napoleon
Hill’s Think and Grow Rich.The book is a treasure house of amplification
of the points presented below, containing many examples and anecdotes.They are intended to “whet your appetite” to
acquire and read the complete book.Although Hill’s book is oriented toward the accumulation of financial
wealth, the principles espoused in it may be applied to accomplish any goal.The book is very famous, and can be found in
almost any bookstore.

Chapter I, Thoughts Are Things

Truly, “thoughts are things,” and powerful things at that,
when they are mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a burning
desire for their translation into riches, or other material objects.

Chapter II, Desire: The starting point of all achievement;
the first step toward riches

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can
achieve.

Determine what you intend to give in return for what you
desire.

“I bargained with Life for a penny,

And Life would pay no more,

However I begged at evening

When I counted my scanty store.

“For Life is a just employer,

He gives you what you ask,

But once you have set the wages,

Why, you must bear the task.

“I worked for a menial’s hire,

Only to learn, dismayed,

That any wage I had asked of Life,

Life would have willingly paid.”

Chapter III, Faith: Visualization of, and belief in attainment
of desire; the second step toward riches

There are no limitations to the mind except those we
acknowledge.

Both poverty and riches are the offspring of thought.

Faith is a State of Mind Which May Be
Induced by Autosuggestion

All down the ages, the religionists have admonished
struggling humanity to “have faith” in this, that, and the other dogma or
creed, but they have failed to tell people how
to have faith.They have not stated that
“faith is a state of mind that may be induced by self-suggestion.

Chapter IV, Autosuggestion: The medium for influencing the
subconscious mind; the third step toward riches

Autosuggestion is self-suggestion.

The subconscious mind takes any orders given it in the
spirit of absolute faith, and acts upon those orders, although the orders often
have to be presented over and over again,
through repetition.

Every adversity, every failure and every
heartache carries with it the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.

There are two kinds of knowledge.One is general, the other is
specialized.General knowledge, no
matter how great in quantity or variety it may be, is of but little use in the
accumulation of money.The faculties of
the great universities possess, in the aggregate, practically every form of
general knowledge known to civilization.Most of the professors have but
little money.They specialize on teaching knowledge, but they do not
specialize on the organization, the use of knowledge.

Knowledge will not attract money, unless it is organized,
and intelligently directed, through practical plans of action, to the definite end of accumulation of money.Lack of understanding of this fact has been
the source of confusion to millions of people who falsely believe that
“knowledge is power.”It is nothing of
the sort!Knowledge is only potential power.It becomes power only when, and if, it is
organized into definite plans of action and directed to a definite end.

The “missing link” in all systems of education may be found
in the failure of educational institutions to teach their students how to
organize and use knowledge after they acquire it.

Chapter VI, Imagination: The workshop of the mind; the fifth
step toward riches

The imaginative faculty functions in two forms.One is known as “synthetic imagination,” and
the other as “creative imagination.”

Synthetic Imagination:
Through this faculty, one may arrange old concepts, ideas, or plans into new combinations.This faculty creates nothing.It merely
works with the material of experienced, education, and observation with which
it is fed.It is the faculty used most
by the inventor, with the exception of the “genius” who draws upon the creative
imagination, when he cannot solve his problem through synthetic imagination.

Creative Imagination: Through the faculty of creative
imagination, the finite mind of man has direct communication with Infinite
Intelligence.It is the faculty through
which “hunches” and “inspirations” are received.It is by this faculty that all basic, or new ideas are handed over to man.It is through this faculty that one
individual may “tune in,” or communicate with the subconscious minds of other
men.

The creative imagination works automatically, in the manner
described in subsequent pages.This
faculty functions only when the conscious mind is working at an exceedingly
rapid rate, as for example, when the conscious mind is stimulated through the
emotion of a strong desire.

The creative faculty becomes more alert in proportion to its
development through use.

The great leaders of business, industry, finance, and the
great artists, musicians, poets, and writers became great, because they
developed the faculty of creative imagination.

Ally yourself with a group of as many people as you may need
for the creation and carrying out of your plan or plans for the accumulation of
money – making use of the “Master Mind” principle described in a later chapter.

Keep in mind these facts:

First: you are engaged in an undertaking of major importance
to you.To be sure of success, you must
have plans which are faultless.

Second: you must have the advantage of the experience,
education, native ability and imagination of other minds.This is in harmony with the methods followed
by every person who has ever accumulated a great fortune.

No individual has sufficient experience, education, native
ability, and knowledge to insure the accumulation of a great fortune, without
the cooperation of other people.Every
plan you adopt, in your endeavor to accumulate wealth, should be the joint
creation of yourself and every other member of your “Master Mind” group.You may originate your own plans, either in
whole or in part, but see that those plans are checked, and approved by the
members of your “Master Mind” alliance.

If the first plan which you adopt does not work
successfully, replace it with a new plan; if this new plan fails to work,
replace it with still another, and so on, until you find a plan which does
work.Right here is the point at which
the majority of men meet with failure, because of their lack of persistence in
creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.

The Major Attributes of Leadership:

Unwavering courage

Self-control

A keen sense of justice

Definiteness of decision

Definiteness of plans

The habit of doing more than paid
for

A pleasing personality

Sympathy and understanding

Mastery of detail

Willingness to assume full
responsibility

Cooperation

There are two forms of leadership.The first, and by far the most effective, is
leadership by consent of, and with the sympathy of the followers.The second is leadership by force, without
the consent and sympathy of the followers.

History is filled with evidences that leadership by force
cannot endure.The downfall and
disappearance of dictators and kings is significant.It means that people will not follow forced
leadership indefinitely.

The Ten Major Causes of Failure in Leadership:

Inability to organize details

Unwillingness to render humble
service

Expectation of pay for what they
“know” instead of what they do with what they know

Fear of competition from followers

Lack of imagination

Selfishness

Intemperance

Disloyalty

Emphasis of the “authority” of
leadership

Emphasis of title

The Thirty-One Major Causes of Failure:

Unfavorable hereditary background

Lack of a well-defined purpose in
life

Lack of ambition to aim above
mediocrity

Insufficient education

Lack of self-discipline

Ill health

Unfavorable environmental
influences during childhood

Procrastination

Lack of persistence

Negative personality

Lack of controlled sexual urge

Uncontrolled desire for “something
for nothing”

Lack of a well defined power of
decision

One or more of the six basic fears
(described in a later chapter)

Wrong selection of a mate in
marriage

Over-caution

Wrong selection of associates in
business

Superstition and prejudice

Wrong selection of a vocation

Lack of concentration of effort

The habit of indiscriminate
spending

Lack of enthusiasm

Intolerance

Intemperance

Inability to cooperate with others

Possession of power that was not
acquired through self effort

Intentional dishonesty

Egotism and vanity

Guessing instead of thinking

Lack of capital

Any particular cause of failure
from which you have suffered that has not been included in the foregoing list

Persistence is an essential factor in the procedure of
transmuting desire into its monetary equivalent.The basis of persistence is the power of
will.

You Can Train Yourself to Be Persistent

Persistence is a state of mind, therefore it can be
cultivated.Like all states of mind,
persistence is based upon definite causes, among them these:

Definiteness of purpose

Desire

Self-reliance

Definiteness of plans

Accurate knowledge

Cooperation

Willpower

Habit

People refuse to take chances in business, because they fear
criticism which may follow if they fail.The fear of criticism in such
cases is stronger than the desire for success.

The Last Great Prophet, Reviewed by Thomas Sugrue

When the armies of the prophet entered Jerusalem
not a single person was killed because of his faith.When the crusaders entered the city,
centuries later, not a Moslem man, woman, or child was spared.But the Christians did accept one Moslem idea
– the place of learning, the university.

Chapter X, Power of the Master Mind: The driving force; the
ninth step toward riches

Power is essential for success in the accumulation of money.

Plans are inert and useless, without sufficient power to
translate them into action.

Power may be defined as “organized and intelligently
directed knowledge.”Power, as the term
is here used, refers to organized effort, sufficient to enable the individual
to transmute desire into its monetary equivalent.Organized effort is produced through the
coordination of effort of two or more people, who work toward a definite end,
in a spirit of harmony.

…the sources of knowledge:

Infinite Intelligence

Accumulated experience

Experiment and research

No individual may have great power without availing himself
of the “Master Mind.”

The psychic phase of the Master Mind principle is much more
difficult to understand.You may catch a
significant suggestion from this statement: “No two minds ever come together
without, thereby, creating a third, invisible, intangible force which may be
likened to a third mind.”

The human mind is a form of energy, a part of it being
spiritual in nature.When the minds of
two people are coordinated in a spirit of harmony, the spiritual units of
energy of each mind form an affinity, which constitutes the “psychic” phase of
the Master Mind.

The reality of a sixth sense has been fairly well
documented.This sixth sense is creative
imagination.

The faculty of creative imagination is the direct link
between the finite mind of man and the Infinite Intelligence.All so-called revelations, referred to in the
realm of religion, and all discoveries of basic or new principles in the field
of invention, take place through the faculty of creative imagination.

Sex energy is the creative energy of all geniuses.There never has been, and never will be a
great leader, builder, or artist lacking in this driving force of sex.

The Storehouse of Personal Magnetism

A teacher, who has trained and directed the efforts of more
than 30,000 salespeople, made the astounding discovery that highly sexed men
are the most efficient salesmen.The
explanation is, that the factor of personality known
as “personal magnetism” is nothing more nor less than sex energy.Highly sexed people always have a plentiful supply
of magnetism. … This energy may be communicated to others through the following
media:

The hand-shake

The tone of voice

Posture and carriage of the body

The vibrations of thought

Body adornment

The Uselessness of Wealth without Women

Man’s greatest
motivating force is his desire to please woman!

Take women out of their lives, and great wealth would be
useless to most men.It is this inherent desire of man to please
woman which gives woman the power to make or break a man.

The subconscious mind works day and night.Through a method of procedure, unknown to
man, the subconscious mind draws upon the forces of Infinite Intelligence for
the power with which it voluntarily transmutes one’s desires into their
physical equivalent, making use always of the most practical media by which
this end may be accomplished.

You cannot entirely
control your subconscious mind, but you can voluntarily hand over to it any
plan, desire, or purpose which you wish transformed into concrete form.Read again, instructions for using the
subconscious mind, in the chapter on Autosuggestion.

The Seven Major Positive Emotions:

The emotion of desire

The emotion of faith

The emotion of love

The emotion of sex

The emotion of enthusiasm

The emotion of romance

The emotion of hope

The Seven Major Negative Emotions (To Be Avoided)

The emotion of fear

The emotion of jealousy

The emotion of hatred

The emotion of revenge

The emotion of greed

The emotion of superstition

The emotion of anger

The Secret of Effective Prayer

If you pray for a thing, but have fear as you pray that you
may not receive it, or that your prayer will not be acted upon by Infinite
Intelligence, your prayer will have been
in vain.

The subconscious mind is the intermediary, which translates
one’s prayers into terms which the Infinite Intelligence can recognize,
presents the message, and brings back the answer in the form of a definite plan
or idea for procuring the object of the prayer.Understand this principle, and you will know why mere words read from a
prayer book cannot, and will never serve as an agency of communication between
the mind of man and Infinite Intelligence.

Chapter XIII, The Brain: A broadcasting and receiving
station for thought; the eleventh step toward riches

Anybody can wish for riches, and most people do, but only a
few know that a definite plan, plus a burning desire for
wealth, are the only dependable means of accumulating wealth.

Sometimes men speak lightly of the intangibles – the things
which they cannot perceive through any of their five senses, and when we hear
them, it should remind us that all of us
are controlled by forces which are unseen and intangible.

Chapter XIV, The Sixth Sense: The door to the temple of
wisdom; the thirteenth step toward riches

The thirteenth principle is known as the sixth sense,
through which Infinite Intelligence may and will communicate voluntarily,
without any effort from, or demands by, the individual.

This principle is the apex of the philosophy.It can be assimilated, understood, and applied only by first mastering
the other twelve principles.

The sixth sense is that portion of the subconscious mind
which has been referred to as the creative imagination.It has also been referred to as the
“receiving set” through which ideas, plans, and thoughts flash into the
mind.The flashes are sometimes called
hunches or inspirations.

Chapter XV, The Six Ghosts of Fear: Take inventory of
yourself, as you read this closing chapter, and find out how many of the
“ghosts” are standing in your way

There are six basic fears, with some combination of which
every human suffers at one time or another:

The fear of poverty

The fear of criticism

The fear of ill health

The fear of loss of love of someone

The fear of old age

The fear of death

Symptoms of the Fear of Poverty:

Indifference

Indecision

Doubt

Worry

Over-caution

Procrastination

Symptoms of the Fear of Criticism:

Self-consciousness

Lack of poise

Personality

Inferiority complex

Extravagance

Lack of initiative

Lack of ambition

Symptoms of the Fear of Ill Health

Autosuggestion (negative use of)

Hypochondria

Exercise (lack of)

Susceptibility

Self-coddling

Intemperance

Symptoms of the Fear of Loss of Love

Jealousy

Fault finding

Gambling

Symptoms of the Fear of Old Age

The tendency to slow down and
develop an inferiority complex at the age of mental maturity (around forty)

The habit of speaking
apologetically of one’s self as “being old” merely because one has reached the
age of forty or fifty, instead of reversing the rule and expressing gratitude
for having reached the age of wisdom and understanding

The habit of
killing off initiative, imagination, and self-reliance by falsely believing
one’s self too old to exercise these qualities.The habit of the man or woman of forty
dressing with the aim of trying to appear much younger, and affecting
mannerisms of youth, thereby inspiring ridicule by both friends and strangers.

Symptoms of the Fear of Death

The habit of thinking about dying instead of making the most
of life, due, generally, to lack of purpose, or lack of a suitable occupation

How to Protect Yourself against Negative Influences

To protect yourself against negative influences, whether of
your own making, or the result of the activities of negative people around you,
recognize that you have a will-power, and put it into constant use, until it
builds a wall of immunity against negative influences in your own mind.

Recognize the fact that you, and every other human being,
are, by nature, lazy, indifferent, and susceptible to all suggestions which
harmonize with your weaknesses.

Recognize that negative influences often work on you through
your subconscious mind, therefore they are difficult
to detect, and keep your mind closed against all people who depress or
discourage you in any way.